It
is not enough to get the poem right, there are also the poem's relations with
other poems. Here are two Tang poems which together make that point.

These
two poems are both on the theme of a visit to the Imperial tombs of an earlier
dynasty. Both are standard anthology pieces. Both are heptameter quatrains, both
are set in the autumn season, and both express the poignancy of the fading of
past great achievements. Neither, read by itself, is hard to understand. But the
second poem (by Du Mu) is not wholly understood unless the reader is aware that
it is one-upping the first poem (by Shvn Chywaen-chi), and that such competitive
revisiting of old themes is part of the poetic personality of Du Mu. The tombs
in the first poem are those of the Latter Han, in the hills around the Latter
Han capital at Lwo-yang; the tombs in the second poem are those of the Han proper,
outside of their northwestern capital Chang-an. There is no question of more accurate
description of the same scene. It is merely a matter of going beyond the already
moving pathos of the wind in the pine and cypress trees that were customarily
planted by graves. An extra turn of the screw.

Bei-mangShvn Chywaen-chi (c650-c713)

Here upon the Bei-mang
hillsare
rows of burial mounds, A thousand autumns, a myriad years,beyond
the city's bounds; Back in the town, as day declines,songs
and bells ring loud - But up in the hills, one only hearspine
and cypress sounds

Ascending
to Lv-you ParkDu
Mu (803-852)

An
endless sky without a speck,a
lone bird fades from view, Here the myriad ages havetheir
final obsequies; This is what the House of Hancomes
to in the end - Not so much as a single treeto
stir in the autumn breeze

The
methodological point is that it is hard to translate the second poem in isolation.
Somehow, by an effort of annotation, or a device of juxtaposition, or, as above,
by both, you need to get into the picture both the first poem and the second poet's
pleasure in surpassing the first poem.